I had big plans for the day, which really were no plans, perhaps do some fishing, get my sailboat out, chase a golf ball, float in the pool. Instead, as the heat index reached 100 (that’s about 38 degrees for my Celsius friends), I found myself shoveling dirt in a horse stall.

the problem…

With our farrier making his monthly, bimonthly, six-weekly, visit tomorrow, I found myself under the gun to get the main run-in stall back in decent enough repair that I could hold reins and not be terribly embarrassed by the condition of the barn.

You see, the flies this time of year bother my boys terribly. Hell, wouldn’t you be? The damn flies bother me terribly too, but I least I can scoot into blessed air conditioning when the going gets too tough. No such luck for the horses, so what they do is paw up dust to keep the bugs away. Paw enough when you’re big enough and soon enough there’s a mighty fine hole in the ground and a mighty fine weekend of plans of doing nothing much goes bye-bye.

on the mower…

through the woods…

future barn dirt…

loaded up…

dropped off…

shoveled out…

the end result, one stall, one side…

collateral damage…

Bear with me, just a few more comments. The whole job would have been easier with a backhoe, instead of the front-end loader, but I am too cheap to buy one, and have no place to store it if I did own one. It is amazing how tight a barn stall can get, especially when you’re on top of a tractor. Things might have been easier if I had taken off the mower deck, too lazy, too hot, too bothered…

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14 thoughts on “Stalled…”

I received a rather strange message this morning. I think it was from your horses:
“Tell him to spare everyone’s blushes-put central a/c in the barn”
Im not quite sure what to make of it, but I thought I ought to pass it on.
How DO they use a keyboard with those hooves?…

Bebe, the boys can count with their hooves, so tapping on the keyboard should not be too much of a problem for them, though I will not stand for it if they turn out to get a better following than me, sly rascals…

Hey you old dodger, I can spot them a zapper, but the bourbon is going to be for me…

Oh, and it is so great to see you writing on a larger scale! Good luck with The Lion’s Den and good luck getting through your own summer. Down here when the temperature hits 100, we sweat; up where you are, when it gets that hot, people die, big difference.

Now Bebe, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, sprinkler maybe, the Slip-N-Slide, like the bourbon, is for me, though my first major scar came from slipping and sliding, gosh, getting close to fifty years ago.

Heavens, just thinking of that makes me want to reach for a bourbon, make it a double…

Heat and flies reminds me of Oz. The great australian wave – do they greet others like that round your way? Heat with water is just dire – it has been a heatwave here in london at 24 degrees celsuis but without the beach and pool it is sweltering I tell you! We have tractors here as well but they are also known as 4WD’s.

Oh, Naomi, I tell you, we can get some heat in my part of the world! Everything just slows down, becomes sultry, languid, still, and buggy. Interesting enough, despite the “hello, how are you” nature of yesterday’s blast, it has been a relatively cool summer. For instance, though the index reached 100, we have not yet had a day where the actual reading made it that high.

Regarding the whole 4WD term, in the States it is a selling point for the auto manufacturers, my big farm truck, a Dodge 2500, has 4WD, so does, for that matter my son’s Nissan Pathfinder.

I must say, by the looks of things,you have quite the operations there! Those horses look stunning. You must have quite a few. I love horses. Here in Bucks county where I live there are so many horse estates and boarding farms. I would love to get up close and just pet them and rub there mane! I haven’t been near horses in years! I am hoping their id a farm where I could go see some. There such great creatures.

You are so right; Bucks County is just one of the loveliest spots in the horse world. Now don’t get me wrong. Hanging with and grooming horses are a grand way to spend the day; but my dear Mistress, saddling up is even better…

My Dear Tabitha
Yep, 100 in the shade, with pestilent levels of flies and gnats, but think about the benefits, you can work with horses, there is a pool so you can work on a tan, there are lots and lots of really nice bottles of wine and liquor so you can work on a buzz, which make swooning easier…

Recent Background Noise

Perhaps my ennui stems from David Bowie's death. I read somewhere that we should consider ourselves lucky to have lived at the same time he did. I do. Many years ago, there was a girl in my secondary school, Debbie P., who was very hip, very groovy, and very pretty. Now I attended Catholic schools and so, as you might imagine, we had to wear uniforms, except, of course, for after-school activity, and that's where I get to the point of the story. Our school was putting on its big play of the year, I had a small part, Debbie was working backstage. One evening during rehearsal she showed up wearing a Ziggy Stardust tee-shirt. I was young, naive, not hip, not groovy, and not knowing who the ambiguous Ziggy might be. During the weekend that followed that rehearsal, I went to a record store and discovered just what David Bowie was all about. It was a transforming experience. Now some forty years later, I farm, David is dead, and Debbie is into Christian rock bands. Did I say ennui...